Review: Prelude to Transfomers Combiner Wars – Windblade

The Combiner Wars will soon be at hand and the lead up to it has been something of a rocky road. A series of four short promo videos were produced by Hasbro and Machinima to promote the upcoming Transformers: Combiner Wars cartoon series which appears to be loosely based on the IDW Publishing comic of the same name. Each of these webisodes centres around one of the upcoming show’s key players and the results have thus far ranged from tolerable to downright atrocious.

The last of the Prelude to Transformers: Combiner Wars features Windblade, a character who will be familiar to anyone following the comic book series. Windblade is a partially fan-made female Transformer who’s life role is that of ‘city speaker’. It was her job to speak on behalf of the Titans, ancient and gigantic robots who transform into cities. However, now that the Combiner Wars have ravaged her homeland, she has taken on a new role…

Meet Windblade: Combiner Hunter!

That’s right. Windblade is pretty darn pissed off that the giant super robots known as Combiners have thrashed her home. This Prelude episode features some tough talking and very good voice acting for Windblade. You can really hear it in her voice that she’s had enough of diplomacy and wants to slice some limbs! On top of that, the music is nice and moody, creating a foreboding atmosphere.

While the animation is still rendered in the somewhat simplistic fashion of the other webisodes, Windblade’s installment is put together with a bit more guile and craft than its predecessors, making it pretty pleasant on the eyes overall. The animators of this episode clearly have a good grasp on lighting effects, which they put to good use here, making the episode look nice an stylish.

While it’s not amazing or anything, Windblade is the best of the Combiner Wars preludes. Transformers fans can raise their expectations for the new cartoon ever so slightly now.

Transformers: Combiner Wars will debut on the 2nd of August. If you’re still not convinced about the show, the official trailer (featuring actual footage from the show itself) is online now:

Do you think Transformers: Combiner Wars will be any good? Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section!

Sean is Geek Ireland's resident dinosaur enthusiast, having been fascinated by prehistory since a time before he could read, speak or stand in an upright position (he still struggles to do at least one of these things on a daily basis).
Known as one of the biggest dinosaur fans Ireland has ever produced, Sean has delivered talks on his favourite subject at many venues and events including the Irish Film Institute, the UCD Science Expression Festival, Tayto Park, Dublin Comic Con and even London's Comedy Store.